Murder of top nuclear scientist: did British government fail to protect him?

UK Government Denies Failing To Protect Nuclear Scientist Stabbed To Death In Suspected Kremlin Hit
The British government has denied that it failed in its duty of care towards a state scientist who was found stabbed to death after his research helped connect the Kremlin to a high-profile assassination on British soil.January 18, 2018, Heidi Blake, BuzzFeed News Investigations Editor, Jim WatersonBuzzFeed UK Political Editor A top nuclear scientist found stabbed to death after returning from a research trip to Russia was given an official briefing before he travelled and was not judged to be in any danger, the British government has declared.

The body of Dr Matthew Puncher was found riddled with knife wounds in 2016, weeks after his nuclear research helped a judge determine that the KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko had been poisoned in London by Russia’s secret service – and shortly after he visited the country on separate government business.

The police and coroner declared Puncher’s death a suicide – concluding that he had managed to stab and slash himself repeatedly with two separate knives before succumbing to his wounds. But BuzzFeed News last year revealed that US intelligence agencies had passed MI6 evidence connecting Puncher’s death – and 13 others – to Russian state or mafia assassins, yet the police had treated every case as non-suspicious.

The government denied failing in its duty of care towards Puncher in a letter to Lord Rooker, a Labour peer who wrote to Theresa May in November asking why the scientist had been sent to Russia on state business in the immediate aftermath of the Litvinenko verdict. “It was known how explosive the issue was between the UK and Russia, so why was Dr Puncher not withdrawn?” he asked, noting that the prime minister had made public her commitment to “the population being kept safe” and yet “it appears the Government failed in respect of Dr Puncher”.

Lord Rooker received a response last week noting his concerns but insisting that the government had no reason to believe Puncher was at risk when he was assigned to visit the Mayak nuclear facility in Russia to study the effects of long-term radiation exposure on the local population…….

The discovery of the levels of polonium in Litvinenko’s system put the Kremlin squarely in the frame for his killing. Russia, which keeps the substance under rigorous state control, is the only country in the world that produces polonium in the amounts used to kill Litvinenko. On the basis of that evidence, the judge leading the public inquiry into Litvinenko’s death concluded in 2016 that the defector had been assassinated by hitmen sent by Russia’s secret service and the operation had “probably” been approved by President Vladimir Putin.

Weeks after that damning verdict – dismissed by the Kremlin as a “blatant provocation” by the British government – Puncher was sent to the same Mayak nuclear facility where polonium is manufactured to carry out state-funded research.

The investigation into Puncher’s death by BuzzFeed News uncovered suspicions that the scientist and his colleagues were being tailed by the Russian secret service during visits to the country in the months before he died. And though British police testified at the inquest into Puncher’s death that “no one in his family seemed particularly surprised he had taken his own life”, BuzzFeed News revealed that officers never interviewed several close relatives and colleagues, some of whom suspect foul play. One source close to the family said Puncher’s death was “highly suspicious” and likely connected to work he was doing in Russia that came to the attention of the FSB. “If that’s the case,” the relative said, “it could only have come from Putin.”

Lord Rooker’s letter also raised questions over why none of the 14 Russian-linked deaths exposed by BuzzFeed News have been treated as suspicious by the British police – which the government has still failed to answer. He used a speech in the chamber of the House of Lords last June to call for all 14 cases to be fully investigated.

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